This Is Our City

• many large American cities have something like Fresh Direct: order your groceries online and have them delivered the next day, boxed, to your kitchen; great if you are sick or time pressured
• fresh fruit and cheap flowers at corner stands rival expensive shops elsewhere
• great food in every restaurant—no bad meals

Kids

• less peer pressure; great diversity of interests and skills in every school cancels the need to fit into a mold
• diversity of friends and classmates makes them comfortable anywhere in the world later on
• babysitters within walking distance or travel on own—no driving them home late at night
• babysitting less expensive with neighborhood co-op
• kids' friends often within walking distance, or meet at playground; no carpooling
• easy access to cultural enrichment activities (music, art, drama, parks)
• you do things with your kids, rather than sending them out to play in the yard
• teens don't need a car
• teens aren't riding with other teens who may be reckless, drunk, or newly minted drivers
• navigating the city makes them resourceful—not going to be unnerved anywhere else
• kids as young as 11 years old can take themselves to their own dental and allergist appointments, music lessons, playdates
• if you pray and talk frankly in front of your children about your fears and challenges regarding church planting, and your kids see you deriving the strength to go on with it from God, you will be a hero to your children, one who practices what he preaches
• you are able to process the sinfulness of the world, which is up close and visible in the city, with your children; they aren't shielded from it until just as they are leaving home and you are no longer as much an influence in their lives.
• The best reason to raise kids in the city: they see young, hip, urban Christians in the church, new believers who have been there and done that and find Christ better than all of it; these young believers are role models that parents can never be—no kid wants to grow up to be their parents; but the artists, musicians, politicians, and others they find in the urban church are a huge aid to making Christianity plausible to kids

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